Abstract

This article seeks to compare unionist and nationalist attitudes to the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA), in an effort to determine whether the Agreement has had a positive or negative impact upon the Northern Ireland community. It will be argued that viewed through narrow criteria the Agreement has achieved some success, but that its longer-term objectives of securing peace and inter-communal toleration are no closer to being realised today than they were in November 1985. A central theme within the text is that institutional frameworks such as the AIA are often unable to maintain their original strategic objectives due to the essentially reactive nature of government.